379 people, some dressed as robots, smash the offical Guinness World Record attempt for robot dancing at the University of Melbourne, breaking the previous record of 279 people set by the University of Kent

A supporter of deposed Honduran President Manuel Zelaya wears a makeshift gas mask during a protest outside the Pedagogic University in Tegucigalpa. For details on how to make the mask contact your local Honduran embassy but start with a plastic juice bottle and a face cloth. To test, run at your local riot police, shouting!.

This horse named Poe could be declared the world's tallest horse. He is pictured with his owner Shereen Thompson, in Tupperville, Canada. Poe stands 20.2 hands tall at the shoulder and 10 feet tall with his head upright, and weighs 3,000 pounds.

WE asked Shereen what Poe eats every day and she replied "Anything he wants! We can't stop him!" Fair enough.

Specially trained sniffer honey bees may be coming to an airport near you soon, thanks to a successful new prototype that is about the size of a handheld vacuum cleaner. The Vasor136, developed by Hertfordshire Company Inscentinel, and partially funded by the Home Office OSCT (Office for Security and Counter Terrorism), is creating a buzz after successful tests with the government.

Training the bees is simply a matter of bribing them with sugary treats. Mathilde Briens, Head of R&D at Inscentinel, explains: "It all revolves around training and reward, a classical Pavlovian conditioning of the honeybees. We expose the bees to the odour, say the smell of TNT explosive, for a few seconds and simultaneously give the bees a sugar syrup reward. After 4 or 5 exposures the bees associate the odour with the reward..."

The device holds six cassettes of six bees. The Female Worker bees are kept in optimum conditions in a filtered airstream until they reach the environment to be tested, e.g. near a suspected car bomb, or luggage at Heathrow

When it comes to his approach to training, Arnold Schwarzenegger has some key principles that he stresses must be present in any program regardless of who you are. First off, Schwarzenegger notes that people do have individual needs and, therefore, you must listen to your body to some degree when deciding on the type of program you should utilize. Variations will depend on your body type; how fast or slow you're able to gain muscle (this is partially genetic); your own individual metabolic rate; what weak points you have in your body; and the level of recuperation you normally experience.

After taking into account those variables, the other factors that must be touched upon when you decide to embark on the Arnold Schwarzenegger workout are:....

Compared to teenagers who shared a vehicle with their parents, teenagers with their own car were twice as likely to be involved in an accident, according to a study published today in the journal Pediatrics.

A related study from the same authors found that parenting styles can impact a teenager's risk of crashing.

Monday, September 28, 2009

A van carrying beehives in Turkey has crashed into a truck, letting huge swarms of bees free to sting the injured and rescue workers at the scene.

In the end, about 20 people were taken to hospitals, six of them injured in the crash and the rest rescue workers who were stung by the bees, said the state-run Anatolia news agency.

One of the crash victims later died, but it was not immediately known if he had been killed by the impact of the accident or the insect attacks, said local Gov Ahmet Altinparmak.

The rescue workers - including local beekeepers summoned to the scene - used hoses, blankets and rags to try to ward off the bees. But it took about an hour for them to remove the crash victims from the chaotic scene, Anatolia said.

Chew the fat

A recortador jumps over a bull during a bull leaping contest show at the Plaza Monumental bullring in Barcelona. He says 'Sometimes you are just jumping through hoops or going through the motions, for your sport'. Yuck!

Friday, September 25, 2009

Alcohol, a drug that is a major cause of accidents, may actually protect the brain from a life-threatening injury when an accident does occur, according to a study published this week in Archives of Surgery.

Half of the patients hospitalized for trauma are intoxicated at the time of injury.

In the study of 38,000 patients with moderate to severe traumatic brain injuries who were admitted to U.S. hospitals between 2000 and 2005, 38 percent had alcohol in their blood. Such patients had a lower risk of dying of their injuries than those who hadn't been drinking.

"This study really brings up more questions than it answers," says coauthor Ali Salim, M.D., the program director of the General Surgery Residency Educational Program at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, in Los Angeles.

"It's a bad thing to say alcohol is good, especially since it's responsible for so many of these injuries. But our study suggests there may be some survival advantage for people with elevated [blood alcohol] levels."

Each year, about 2 million people in the U.S. experience traumatic brain injuries, and 56,000 die and 80,000 are permanently impaired as a result. Alcohol plays a role in 40 percent of car fatal crashes, and half of the patients hospitalized for trauma are intoxicated at the time of injury.The study may help experts develop therapies for traumatic brain injuries, but it has important limitations as well, Salim says.

Patients in the study who had been drinking were younger, had less severe injuries, and spent less time on a ventilator or in an intensive care unit than other patients. (Alcohol, however, still seemed to protect the brain after taking these factors into account.) Overall, 9.7 percent of people who hadn't been drinking died after a brain injury, compared with 7.7 percent of those with alcohol in their blood

A Canadian charity called Rethink Breast Cancer, a serious national outfit that lists some of the country's top oncologists on its advisory council, is looking for new ways to spread awareness of the disease to a younger generation.

It says it uses a "bold, enterprising and entrepreneurial approach" to spread the word among younger men and women instead of just handing out brochures that nobody reads.

The result: A sexy video that's eye-catching, to be sure, but that has also stirred controversy in some quarters.

A British inmate found a creative way to try to prevent swine flu. Seems he used alcohol-based, hand-sanitizing gel to make cocktails. (Flu-drivers? Gel and tonics? Absolut swine?)

Dorset prison provided the anti-bacterial gel Monday to help fight the spread of flu germs. Within hours, however, guards discovered an inmate had gotten drunk on the goo. All the hand pumps were quickly removed.